What matters, particularly within management, is that there is someone available who can deal with conflict resolution.

Some companies now advocate that each employee should take part in some form of conflict resolution training, thereby hopefully reducing the number of conflicts that take place. The Everything DiSC Workplace Profile along with Everything DiSC Comparison Reports are excellent tools that are used to understand each others behaviors and priorities when in conflict situations, highlight pitfalls to avoid when working through conflict, and provide specific strategies for resolution. Companies get the most value out of Everything DiSC Workplace Profiles by adding effective conflict resolution courses using the Everything DiSC Workplace Training Kit and setting up an EPIC Account that provides a way to issue and manage all EPIC Online Profiles.

The Problem with Unresolved Conflict

Conflict is unavoidable. What is avoidable, however, is for conflict to become a full-blown argument or shouting match, or even for it to become physical. What is also avoidable, and incredibly important, is that conflicts are resolved.

When conflicts go unaddressed, they can have a negative impact on productivity and teamwork. Using conflict resolution strategies in the workplace will help maintain a healthy work environment. These strategies will help employees understand their reactions to conflict and how these reactions affect those around them. It also helps them discover more constructive ways to deal with conflict.

Your focus needs to be on resolving the conflict and improving the situation. Invite the other person to sit down with you, and ask questions.

These questions include what they would like to see happen, how that can be made possible, whether they are willing to listen to another perspective and share the impact of the experience on themselves, whether there are ideas that could create a compromise, and what the most important issues are within the conflict. While you ask these questions, you should, under no circumstances, agree or disagree with what the person is saying. You are there to listen and to gather facts, not to express an opinion. If you do express an opinion, you will have chosen a side and someone who resolves conflicts has to remain neutral at all times.

Understanding Conflict

As you may well have imagined, resolving conflict is all about having excellent listening and communication skills. Your goal is to find out what the root of the conflict is, and coming to a solution that is suitable for all the parties involved. You have to be able to listen, communicate and ask questions in a non-judgmental way, as well as showing a great deal of empathy and care, while at the same time staying neutral. However, before you even start this, you have to be able to define exactly what conflict is.

Conflict arises from differences, both large and small. It occurs whenever people disagree over their values, motivations, perceptions, ideas, or desires. Sometimes these differences appear trivial, but when a conflict triggers strong feelings, a deep personal need is often at the core of the problem. These needs can be:

a need to feel safe and secure

a need to feel respected and valued

or a need for greater closeness and intimacy

In order to regulate and resolve a conflict, particularly if you are involved in that conflict, do not let your actions be guided by your feelings. During a conflict, you will feel threatened and under attack, which releases a range of hormones in our body, essentially triggering the fight or flight response. A good conflict resolution professional is able to separate themselves from that feeling, in order to create a neutral ground in which conflict can be solved.

The natural response to conflict is “Fight or Flight.” But in reality there are more than just these two responses to conflict. Each of us reacts to conflict in a unique way. We have our own goals, our own fears, and our own ways to get what we need. DiSC Profiles help us to not only understand ourselves better, but also to give others what they need so we can get what we want. We can learn to discuss and resolve our differences using the non-threatening language we learn from DiSC Profiles.

Co-owner/Co-founder of Intesi! Resources. Educated as an architect I transitioned to technology during my career in architecture. Intesi! Resources was founded in 2002 and my focus is everything Web/eCommerce related from the design and development of our site to all the marketing activities involved. I also provide significant support for our clients on all our products and how they are used to deliver assessment-driven learning solutions that develop self-awareness and interpersonal skills.

About Steve Giles

Co-owner/Co-founder of Intesi! Resources. Educated as an architect I transitioned to technology during my career in architecture. Intesi! Resources was founded in 2002 and my focus is everything Web/eCommerce related from the design and development of our site to all the marketing activities involved. I also provide significant support for our clients on all our products and how they are used to deliver assessment-driven learning solutions that develop self-awareness and interpersonal skills.

I really appreciate all the comments and they are so spot on. I feel very lucky to work at an establishment where we’re all friends or just really professional comrades. I have worked in an office with conflict in the past and I can honestly say I didn’t change my behavior cause a training program told me to. I decided to use some of the tactics simply because I wanted to manifest the type of work environment I wanted. Taking the high road wasn’t something I had to do and the other didn’t It was a simple choice to make my work life better.

Every time hear or read about non professional persons (those who are not pro / certified counselors) dispensing advice in this matter, they make it sound so easy. Being the bigger person, taking the high road, is not always that easy, especially when you are dealing with real crass persons. Usually, the less education they have, the more rude and petty they tend to act. Some persons just don’t know how to be gracious.

In many cases, conflict in the workplace just seems to be a fact of life. We’ve all seen situations where different people with different goals and needs have come into conflict. And we’ve all seen the often-intense personal animosity that can result. One of the biggest causes of conflict in the work place which I have seen all too often is the ubiquitous office romance. Once there’s trouble in paradise, the problems / conflict start.

Wendy, I agree with you on this subject I don’t want to go to work and hate my job because I am angry all the time or I don’t want to be around the people I work with. You need to be able to go to work and enjoy yourself because you are going to be there a long time and you are with those people the majority of your day. Thank you.

Most people are at their jobs more than they are at home and if you have conflict at your job it can affect your work performance and it can affect your home life as well which is short anyway. You have done a great job on this post and I am looking forward to seeing if I can use any of this to help some ladies that I work with. Keep up the good work.

I always say to myself or advise others to calm down and let your emotions settle. If you have to step away for a day or two from the situation then please do so. Don’t communicate your feelings towards something or someone out of anger because you may say or do something you might regret. Too many persons I have seen at work lose control of their emotions and wind up messing up their job standing.

Conflict exists throughout environments of all kinds. In the workplace, no matter how much you attempt to avoid it, if you work with people the chances are you will have to deal with conflict at some point. People coming from different viewpoints and experiences, and having different perceptions, are not going to agree all the time. I mean, most of us can’t even see eye to eye with our own siblings.

I guess it stands to reason that conflict comes about from differences – in needs, values and motivations. Sometimes through these differences we complement each other, but sometimes we will conflict. Conflict is not a problem in itself – it is what we do with it that counts. So I guess that it is important that we do something because whether we like it or not, conflicts demand our energy. And boy can they drain us.

I don’t know about you, but I hate conflicts at work. Spending my work days mad at a co-worker, trying to avoid that person and subconsciously finding fault with everything they say or do is not exactly my idea of a good time. I used to be an expert at dodging conflicts on the job and I’m here to tell you that it just doesn’t work! What does work is biting the bullet and doing something about it here and now.

I think that work place conflict is sometimes worse than the conflicts we get into at home especially if they remain unresolved. You are with those people at work more than you are with your family when you think about it so I do my best to get along with the people and to resolve things when they do happen, because they will.

Conflict can also be costly to an organization. The trouble isn’t necessarily the fact that conflict exists. It’s how we deal with those conflicts or what happens when they aren’t resolved. The impact of conflict in the workplace can be devastating – to the parties involved, to colleagues and teams, to clients, and to the business as a whole. Some of the results of unresolved conflict in the workplace include:

I like this video. It gave me some fuzzy warm feelings about my days in middle and high school. I used to enjoy when a teacher would use instructional videos to teach a class. I remember how much students loved when those annoying bright classroom lights were dimmed and the teacher’s aide would fire up the film projector. Yes, I just dated myself. Back then, there was no video on the internet; No DVD’s. Just film projectors.